


bring me to life (bring me home)

by superstarrgirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-24
Updated: 2014-09-24
Packaged: 2018-02-18 14:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2350994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarrgirl/pseuds/superstarrgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He comes back for her - he fights for her. Maybe that's the worst part. Maybe that's the best. But it's the only part that counts.</p><p>3B onward, the development of Emma and Killian's relationship and how happy endings aren't often with who we thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bring me to life (bring me home)

She’s standing in front of the window, bathed in the glow of a city coming to life. He watches her from the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. With a trembling hand, she reaches out and presses five pale fingers to the glass, her eyelids fluttering as she stares down at New York City – a place she used to call home – and finds herself hardly recognizing the hard edges of streets. The harsh blare of taxicabs rings in her ears and the billboards lighting up Times Square make her head spin. This is not how New York used to make her feel – so why does it now?

Killian watches from the door and falls in love. 

He doesn’t wish to disturb her, to take away from the scene unfolding before him, so he just watches as she tips her forehead to the cold window, breath frosting out. “It was home.” She whispers, not acknowledging that he’s there but talking to him all the same.

“Home isn’t often what we think it is.” He replies softly. She says nothing for a moment, instead lets New York City and the promises it used to hold slide under her skin, course through her veins.

“Home is where the heart is.” Emma says almost bitterly. 

“And where is your heart, Swan?”

She turns to look at him now, green eyes alive in the dark of her bedroom. The wind is knocked from him at the beauty he sees before him; at all she’s become in the year they’ve been separated. “With my son.” She breathes, turning back and moving closer to the window. Life keeps moving under her, and maybe that’s what hurts the most. Her life, her time with Henry and Walsh, it had all been a lie, had all been brought crumbling to ash around her and yet the world spins on, moves on as though her breaking heart is nothing more than a change in the weather.

At the thought of Walsh, she almost bursts into tears – that had been a lie. That had been as real as her keeping Henry as a 19 year old with a broken heart and no future. It had been as real as teaching her son his first words and how to walk and long division. It had been as real as any of it, and that stings.

“I could have been happy with Walsh.” She chokes out, everything she’s lost suddenly crashing over her. “We could have had a family, with Henry. We could have started over."

Killian sighs behind her and advances into the room, boots clicking across the hardwood. He stops little over five feet from her, piercing blue eyes burning through her. “It wasn’t real, Swan.” He says after a moment, something broken in his voice, something almost betrayed, and she just loses it.

Emma whirls so quickly she’s a blur and advances. “But it _could_ have been!” She shouts, alive with anger and fury and fear and the knowledge that Killian fought all this time for her and she didn’t even _remember_ him and that she’s hurting him, she’s losing him and she doesn’t know what to do. “It could have been real if you hadn’t come barging into my life again and fucked everything up!” She’s almost howling now, the pain too much and the loss and the confusion and it all just becomes too much. “I _loved_ him, Hook! I loved him! And we could have had something real if you hadn’t have been here! If you hadn’t burst through the door and made me so damn curious and asked me to trust you and _I didn’t ask for you, Killian_.” The words cut deep and she sees him flinch at her caustic tone, feels the whip coil around her hand as she lashes and lashes at age-old wounds.

This is stemming from so much more than just New York and they both know it.

He says nothing for a moment, regaining his composure as he tucks her words away to deal with later. Finally, after only a few seconds that stretch into hours, he clears his throat and says, as strongly as he can, “I will be out by 6am tomorrow morning. I will return at 8:30 so that we may return to Storybrooke. Good evening, Swan.” And then he turns around and sweeps out of her room, shutting the door behind him with a bang that resonates through the whole apartment.

Emma runs a hand across her face and sinks onto the bed, bone-weary and tired. On her dresser sits a drawer of Walsh’s clothes – a few sweatshirts, some pajamas, a handful of jeans and tops. She had given some pajamas to Killian, who’s sleeping on her couch and had yet to decide what to do with the rest. Sitting on top of the pile of clothes is the engagement ring. A gold band with a small diamond on top, a lie of a promise that she had been so stupid to fall for. She can hear Hook thumping around in her living room, lets the sound of his distant mumbling wash over her as she stands, then sinks to her knees and sobs.

\-- 

Her memory comes back in fragments, gaps filling in as they drive to Maine. With about three hours left on an eight-hour journey, both Killian and Henry fall asleep; exhaustion taking over the teenage boy and the pirate so quickly it’s almost comical. Emma glances in the rearview mirror at Henry and sees him curled around her pillow, nuzzled into it. With a sigh, she focuses her attention on the road in front of her.

There’s so much they’ve lost – so much _she’s_ lost. Her memories, the hope that she had held onto. The knowledge that Henry isn’t hers, never really was hers alone. It was all a trick, a thought, a nice dream that never could have lasted, she sees now. At the end of this drive, the end of this journey is a woman who changed every diaper, soothed every tear and fixed every cut and scrape that Emma never could. At the end of this drive is a woman who was the mother Emma never thought she could be.

Driving in a haze, she almost misses the turnoff and so has to cut in front of a minivan. The driver – a harried looking mother – blares the horn and mouths swear words. “Oh get over yourself.” Emma mutters to herself crankily and then jumps when someone clears their throat to her right. Killian’s awake now, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he pushes himself up. “Enjoy your nap?” She questions, flicking on the indicator and turning down the highway. A large sign reads ‘WELCOME TO MAINE!’ and for some reason it almost feels like the first time she drove here, 28 years old with no plan of anything.

“Very much so.” Hook says, and Emma ignores the way he arches his back against the seat and stretches, arms reaching high to brush the roof of her bug. The sun is starting to set, sinking into its little home and painting the sky a palette of gold and red. Suddenly, Emma’s exhausted, body slumping forward slightly as she wills her eyes to stay open.

Hook must notice her tiredness because he clears his throat and offers, “perhaps you should let me drive, Swan.” It’s such a trivial offer, but the nickname tied in with the caring tone and the concern just makes her want to cry. 

“And put you in charge of my kid’s life? And mine? I don’t think so.” Really, it’s supposed to come out a lot worse than it does.

“I’m sure I can figure this contraption out. I’m a hell of a captain.” He responds smartly, harrumphing slightly but when Emma turns to look at him his lips are turned upward in a smile. She almost smiles in response.

 _Almost_. 

\--

“If it can be broken, that means it still works.”

His voice is soft in the snow, reverberating around the small space and something in Emma just breaks because she’s seen this all before.

At 17, she was young, hopeful, and impressionable. The world had been cruel to her but she hadn’t been taught to be cruel back. Neal was so kind and wonderful and he treated her like what she believed a princess would be treated like. Emma knew little more than the fact that she wanted to run, and Neal had helped teach her how to do just that.

Graham had died in her arms. August had gone much the same. She had lost Neal so many times it was almost impossible to count. Walsh had been nothing more than a dream, childlike hope for a girl who had only seen a cruel world.

So when Killian stands in front of her with eyes so sincere and blue and open, so full of promises, Emma’s chest hurts because she can’t do this again, she can’t get attached. Not to Killian, not now. This story has become so familiar that she knows the way it starts and ends – it starts with hope, with love, with a lie and ends with Emma’s broken heart and no one left to pick up the pieces.

He’s staring at her, no challenge in his gaze and that’s almost surprising because he loves a challenge, doesn’t he? But this is not a challenge, this is not a competition. This is Killian’s way of telling Emma that he will wait until she says she’s ready. No one’s ever asked her when she’s ready, and that’s something she’s not really sure she can handle.

She turns briskly and walks away because, let’s be honest here, it’s easier to deal with something you can kill instead of something that you feel so strongly it almost takes you over. 

\--

His arms wrap around her, pulling her close to his chest as Regina’s face is lit up in a sickly glow. “No.” She breathes desperately, nails digging into Killian’s arm. “No, please no.” The Evil Queen grins maniacally, a smile of a woman who’s got everything she’s ever wanted, and if Emma weren’t frozen in shock she’d scream.

“Snow.” Ruby whispers frantically, stepping forward to the window. Charming stops her. The group is quiet as the Queen throws the fireball. The hay at Snow White’s feet catches quickly, a blaze so bright it’s almost blinding. Fire crawls up the princess’s body, licking her arms and torso as she’s engulfed in the glowing embers.

Emma’s heart literally stops.

Killian holds her upright as she sobs into his arm, the pain so strong it's almost numbing, crushing. That was her mother, that was a woman she had grown to love and need and now she’s gone. Emma should be too.

As she stumbles to the window, fingers splayed against the glass as the Evil Queen laughs, Killian holds her tight, her anchor and a reminder to breathe. When Charming tells them it’s time to go, when Ruby’s howl echoes through the night, Emma turns and buries her face in Killian’s shoulder and she’s not really sure what to do now.

\--

“I wanted to thank you, Killian.” She wonders when he stopped being Hook and started being Killian, when he stopped being pirate and became person, became hers. “For coming back for me in the first place.” Thank you for being the only one who did, she wants to say. Thank you for fighting for me.

“It was the right thing to do.” Killian responds, as though it were that simple. As though crossing realms was comparable to _the right thing to do_. She doesn’t question it, instead asks how he did it. There’s more to the story than he had originally wanted to divulge, and when it all comes spilling out Emma’s heart stops for the second time in about a day. 

“You traded your ship for me?” She breathes, leaning so close to him that she can see the flicker in his eyes, the way his lips quirk upward and then flatten.

He meets her gaze and now it all makes so much sense – the absence of the _Roger_ , how desperately he had talked of the sails, how he had never answered questions about his ship but had always looked so sad talking of it.

You traded your home for me, Emma thinks to herself. You traded your connection to your home and your brother and your Milah and the life you had before and you did it all for _me_. She says none of this, instead leans in and kisses him, and it’s so different from Neverland that it’s breathtaking. 

She kisses him, and he kisses back and everything’s better than it’s ever been.

 

 


End file.
